The Montegrappa Fortuna Camouflage is the perfect pen for when you need to write an elegant letter from a trench or something
Dear Helena, trench warfare is awful but at least I have this camouflage fountain pen
It has been months since you said goodbye at the port and you know that Helena must be worried sick. She is a patient woman, and she surely knows that there are few opportunities to write home from the front, but no one can wait forever.
But you find yourself facing two problems.
The first is that, although you now have the time to write, this is only because you have been separated from your platoon and are now hiding behind enemy lines. You cannot risk giving your position away by using a regular pen; light reflecting off of silver and polished ebonite would be like a signal flare to enemy scouts.
The second is that, although a pencil seems like an obvious alternative, you are a gentleman who is fighting to preserve your way of life, and as such the prospect of using a pencil to scratch out a missive is simply out of the question. Moreover, you know that receiving something written in such a manner would drive Helena mad with worry for your well-being—you might as well be sailing into Athens with black sails.
But never fear: there is a solution, for there is a pen that allows you to write to your beloved with the elegance and refinement that tells her you are the same man who set sail so many months ago while still blending effortlessly into the dark woods of the Argonne where you find yourself: the Montegrappa Fortuna Camouflage.
The Fortuna Camouflage is the perfect pen for the writer of uncompromising taste whose circumstances require them to be writing while hidden under a pile of branches. A cartridge converter pen built on the lightweight and comfortable Fortuna body, the Camouflage carries its namesake pattern in dark green, brown, and tan, and has a brushed trim so you can write your beloved a sonnet in beautiful Spencerian while remaining undetected by an enemy soldier scouting your location.
The Camouflage is packaged in a special tin that is marked as a first aid kit on the lid and has munitions references on the side, which is perfect for confusing the enemy if you are captured with it in your possession. Are you a medic? A grenadier? Neither, it’s simply a pen box—but imagine how long it will take them to figure that out!
The Camouflage is also packaged with special branded dog tags, which are perfect for leaving with your beloved as a physical token of your promise to write. Just imagining her wearing them around her neck, absent-mindedly touching them as she looks longingly out the window to see if the postman has come that day, is enough to steel your resolve, as long as you also imagine that she is OK pretending your name is “montegrappa.com.”1
In the few quiet moments you’ve had over the past months you’ve often asked yourself: if winning this great war requires you to sacrifice the values for which you fight, will it be a victory at all? It is a gut-wrenching question to ask, and you are grateful that you do not have to answer it thanks to the Fortuna Camouflage—a pen that allows you to safely write to your beloved under heavy cover without having to use a pencil like some kind of monster.
The Fortuna Camouflage is retired but new-in-box versions are still available on eBay at the time of writing, probably because it is a camouflage fountain pen.2
Your Turn: Discussion Questions
Does anyone have any insight onto the origin of this? I think this came out around the same time as the Fortuna Mosaico and it looks a LOT like those, just in a green palette. I suspect it was supposed to be another part of the Mosaico line (or a riff on it) that they decided to market as “a camouflage fountain pen” for, I don’t know, reasons, and I am curious as to why.
Do you keep pen boxes? I typically don’t, but this one was easy to repurpose for storing inks and pen parts (and a good size/construction for that) so I kept it.
I didn’t keep these, but they say “FORTUNA IUVAT // montegrappa.com” on them, which translates to yelling “fortune favors the bold” and then saying “montegrappa.com” in a regular voice.
I encourage you to check out the eBay and other listings for this pen. There is a WILD range of values assigned to it.
Finally! A pen for the real soldier, unlike that soft decorative slop, the 007 pen. Though I am disappointed in your decision to toss the dog tags; montegrappa.com's beloved would have appreciated having them, I'm sure.
This was very satisfying to read. Hopefully it's enough to keep your long lost love to stay true.